August 27, 2024

I am an interdisciplinary artist-researcher who explores digital structures via experimental interactions to reach the unexpected. Valuing expressions and concepts across the spectrum, my artistic practice creates by synthesizing and remixing a diverse array of sources, which has resulted in a body of work that spans still imagery, video, 3D models, and live coding. My investigations engage “glitch serendipity” – in the act of alternative information seeking, I discover unique results through my idiosyncratic perspective as an artist-scientist. Furthermore, as a Mestizo, I often find beauty and connection with Earth, taking everyday moments of my photography and video recordings from sunsets, flowing rivers, and plant life, then defamiliarizing them to reveal hidden potentials in their phenomena. I achieve this through my artistic coding, which often challenges notions of functionality and subverts naturalized experience. In testing the limits of digital structures, I open space for sublime moments through the interplay of nature and technology speaking for themselves. Excited by the translational surprise in the digital-to-analog process, I seek to further develop my screenprinting experiments and push the limits of artifact resolution. Delving into this traditional medium from an unconventional view, I hope to uncover new dimensions of expression and bring innovation. Through the meticulous production of experimental stencils and layering of inks, I aim to problematize notions of reproducibility, blur agency in making, and activate co-creativity with machines and nature. The works will invite viewers to contemplate the beauty and encoded complexity of our digital age in tactile form.

My primary goal for the residency was to materialize glitchtone in printed media. Thanks to this residency, we were able to achieve this through the offset block press. As an unexpected surprise, I found that the sublimation printing process is able to achieve an incredible vibrancy of colors that is usually impossible from CMYK prints. The printing of raw glitch texture and colors in this process was a real treat to see!

This residency not only allowed me to bring glitchtone to life in printed media but also pushed my understanding of color in concrete form. The surprising quality of sublimation printing has opened up new possibilities for future explorations. This experience has reaffirmed my approach in blending analog techniques with digital experimentation, and I am excited to continue pushing the limits of both mediums in my ongoing practice.

Lena Glitchtone, Two-color Woodcut Work Sample.